Wounded Ukranian soldiers are treated for prosthetic limbs at a clinic in Kyiv as Russia's war on Ukraine continues.
Unrelenting artillery fire along a 1,000-kilometer front line and Russia's frequent use of missiles across the country mean that shrapnel wounds are maiming soldiers and civilians in Ukraine on a scale just beginning to emerge.
"Unfortunately, the number of patients has increased significantly," said Andrii Ovcharenko, who works with a team of medics and technicians at the Without Limits prosthetics clinic, one of almost 80 now operating in Ukraine.
Clinic owner Nagendar Parasher has 25 specialists at the nine clinics he owns in Ukraine; the busiest – in Kyiv and Lviv - would normally see 20 to 30 patients a month, but now it is three times that number, and he says he needs up to 75 more specialists to cope.
Russia has poured extra troops and artillery into the fight this year, and its regular attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure, which began in October, often kill and wound civilians, although Moscow says it targets only the military.
The number of prostheses paid for by Ukraine's Ministry of Social Policy jumped more than 15% to 13,219 in 2022 from a year earlier, according to previously unreported ministry data.
(Reuters)
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